By the beginning of the 20th century, around 150 to 160 Jewish citizens were living all over Fürstenwalde. They worked as doctors, dentists, craftsmen, lawyers or photographers. The shopping streets of Fürstenwalde contained 32 Jewish-owned shops. The National Socialist terror robbed these people of their lives – they were humiliated, driven into flight or murdered. After World War II, no Jewish families returned to Fürstenwalde. The town had thereby lost a segment of its inhabitants who had played an important role in the town’s societal, cultural and economic life before 1933.

Five interviews – filmed as part of the “Questions for You” project – are meant to bring this part of Fürstenwalde’s history back into the town’s memory. The interviews trace the lives of Jewish residents of Fürstenwalde from the perspective of their second- and third-generation descendants and show how the experiences of flight and expulsion during the National Socialist era continue to affect the following generations until this very day. The interviews were conducted with the children and grandchildren of Heinz and Dorothea Eisig (New Zealand), Julius, Hildegard and Gerhard Fürst (Australia), Gerda Brandt (Brazil), Werner and Hilde Hirsch/Hurst (England), and Walter and Luise Brandt (New Zealand).